Courtesy of patriotreport.blogspot.com

By Josh Anderson, YawkeyTalkies Correspondent

Annoyed. Angry. Depressed. Shocked.

Any of these words would describe the feeling most Patriots fans felt Sunday afternoon when the seemingly anemic New England team chocked up a loss to the New York Jets 9-16. It was an awful day for the Patriots and an uncharacteristic performance for Tom Brady, who failed to throw a touchdown pass. In fact, the Patriots didn’t score a touchdown for the first time since 2006 when they played the Miami Dolphins, which was Tom Brady’s last regular season loss. 

Perhaps frustrating is the best word to describe the game, or at least the look on his face as he stood on the sidelines, unable to control any aspect of the game as his defense consistently gave up first down after first down. It was not the Tom of old, or even the Tom we saw last week against the Bills when he engineered two touchdown passes in less than three minutes. No, that Tom Brady didn’t seem to get on the plane to New York this weekend. There were shimmers of his greatness – he did finish with a respectable 216 yards – but his passes lacked their typical laser precision. He seemed to be completely out of groove with both Randy Moss and Joey Galloway as both combined for less than 100 receiving yards. The endless pressure from the Jets defense left him repeatedly shaken and confused in the pocket and forced him to throw errant, sloppy passes.

Maybe it was the jitters of playing the first road game of the season. Maybe it was Jets Head Coach Rex Ryan’s pre-game smack talk that drew so much media attention in the days before the game. I hate to think that a team of the Patriot’s caliber would fall victim to a raucous Jets crowd and Rex Ryan’s oral banality. I still contend that they didn’t, but instead shot themselves in the foot with poor defense, bad penalties and an offense that seemed lethargic and unfocused. 

The Patriots couldn’t stop the run on Sunday, and when you trade away 60 percent of your defense and another 20 percent retires or sits injured, you can’t expect to. The Patriots need to form a cogent defensive line or it will be a long, uphill season. The more time the defense is on the field the less time Brady has to work with the ball, and it’s safe to say the success of this season will rely heavily on his golden arm. 

I’m hardly a Mark Sanchez fan, and I’m even less of a Jets fan, but there was only one quarterback who earned the title of “play maker” on Sunday, and I’ll give you a hint: it was the guy with no rings on his fingers. The Patriots became the next defense to discover that if you give Sanchez too much time he will make you pay for it. He has a tremendous arm, is amazingly accurate on the run and he shows great vision. The Patriots lack of respect for the rookie was evident when their lack of pressure gave Sanchez enough time to find his receivers and make plays. Since this is a Bill Belichick defense, they will learn from their mistakes, and lets just hope it happens before November 22 when the Jets come to Foxborough. 

Sunday’s game left us with more questions than answers for the 2009 Patriots. The concerns about Tom Brady’s health have abated, and we’re now left with larger questions about the team in general. One of them is, can the Patriots play from behind? The Patriots came from behind to beat the Bills, but they never would have had a chance if the Bill’s didn’t cough up the ball on a kickoff with two minutes left. In Sunday’s game they failed to execute when they needed it most, including a crucial third-and-10 with two minutes left. The Patriots finished just 5-for-15 on third downs and 0 for 3 on scoring opportunities in the end zone, settling for field goals each time, a compromise that was one key part to the Patriot’s defeat.

Patriots fans hate losing perhaps more than any other team. We’ve been conditioned over the past few years to expect nothing but a victory, which is perhaps our greatest flaw. Patriots fans are part of a larger group of fans who have been lucky enough to enjoy a golden period of Boston sports that only comes around a couple of times a century. We’ve been spoiled by the success of our teams, from the Red Sox to the Celtics to the Patriots, and words fail us when we’re denied something we feel we deserve. Sunday’s game showed us that it takes more than a name and a reputation to win in the NFL. Entitlement won’t win you games, it takes more than that. Lets hope the Patriots figure out what that is before next weekend.

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